MR. MEADOWS did not visit Gra.s.smere for some days; the cruel one distrusted his own firmness. When he did come he came with a distinct purpose. He found Merton alone.
"Susan sees no one. You have heard?"
"What?"
"Her sweetheart. He is dead."
"Why, how can that be? And who says so?"
"That is the news."
"Well, it is a falsehood!" said Mr. Meadows, coolly.
"I wish to Heaven it might," whispered old Merton, "for she won"t live long after him."
Mr. Meadows then told Merton that he had spoken with a man who had got news of George Fielding not four months old, and he was in very good health.
"Will you tell Susan this?"
"Certainly."
Susan was called down. Meadows started at the sight of her. She was pale and hollow-eyed, and in these few days seemed ten years older. She was dressed all in black. "I am a murderer!" thought he. And remorse without one grain of honest repentance pierced his heart.
"Speak out, John," said the father, "the girl is not a fool. She has borne ill news, she can bear good. Can"t you, Susan?"
"Yes, dear father, if it is G.o.d"s will any good news should come to me." And she never took her eyes off Mr. Meadows, but belied her a.s.sumed firmness by quivering like an aspen leaf.
"Do you know Mr. Griffin?" asked Meadows.
"Yes!" replied Susan, still trembling gently, but all over.
"He has got a letter from Sydney from a little roguish attorney called Crawley. I heard him say with my own ears that Crawley tells him he had just seen George Fielding in the streets of Sydney, well and hearty."
"You are deceiving me out of kindness." (Her eyes fixed on his.)
"I am not. I wish I may die if the man is not as well as I am!"
Her eyes were never off his face, and at this moment she read for certain that it was true.
She uttered a cry of joy so keen it was painful to hear, and then she laughed and cried and sank into a chair laughing and crying in strong hysterics, that lasted till the poor girl almost fainted from exhaustion. Her joy was more violent and even terrible than her grief had been.
The female servants were called to a.s.sist her, and old Merton and Meadows left her in their hands, feeble, but calm and thankful. She even smiled her adieu to Meadows.
The next day Meadows called upon Griffin. "Let me look at that letter?"
said he. "I want to copy a part of it."
"There has been one here before you," said Griffin.
"Who?"
"She did not give her name, but I think it must have been Miss Merton.
She begged me hard to let her see the letter. I told her she might take it home with her. Poor thing! she gave me a look as if she could have eaten me."
"What else?" asked Meadows anxiously--his success had run ahead of his plot.
"She put it in her bosom."
"In her bosom?"
"Ay! and pressed her little white hands upon it as if she had got a treasure. I doubt it will be more like the asp in the Bible story, eh!
sir?"
"There! I don"t want your reflections," said Meadows, fiercely, but his voice quavered. The myrmidon was silenced.
Susan made her escape into a field called the Kynecroft, belonging to the citizens, and there she read the letter. It was a long, tiresome one, all about matters of business which she did not understand; it was only at the last page that she caught sight of the name she longed to see. She hurried down to it, and when she got to it with beating heart it was the fate of this innocent, loving woman to read these words:
"What luck some have. There is George Fielding, of the "Grove Farm,"
has made his fortune at the gold, and married yesterday to one of the prettiest girls in Sydney. I met them walking in the street to-day. She would not have looked at him but for the gold."
Susan uttered a faint moan, and sank down slowly on her knees, like some tender tree felled by a rude stroke; her eyes seemed to swim in a mist, she tried to read the cruel words again but could not; she put her hands before her eyes.
"He is alive," she said, "thank G.o.d, he is alive." And at last tears forced their way through her fingers. She took her handkerchief and dried her eyes. "Why do I cry for another woman"s husband?" and the hot color of shame and of wounded pride burst even through her tears.
"I will not cry," said she, proudly, "he is alive--I will not cry--he has forgotten me; from this moment I will never shed another tear for one that is alive and unworthy of a tear. I will go home."
She went home, crying all the way. And now a partial success attended the deep Meadows" policy. It was no common stroke of unscrupulous cunning to plunge her into the very depths of woe in order to take her out of them. The effects were manifold, and all tended his way.
First she was less sorrowful than she had been before that deadly blow, for now the heart had realized a greater woe, and had the miserable comfort of the comparison; but, above all, new and strong pa.s.sions had risen and battled fiercely with grief--anger and wounded pride.
Susan had self-respect and pride, too, perhaps a shade too much though less small vanity than have most persons of her moderate caliber.
What! had she wept and sighed all these months for a man who did not care for her?
What! had she defied sneers, and despised affectionate hints, and gloried openly in her love, to be openly insulted and betrayed!
What! had she shut herself from the world, and put on mourning and been seen in mourning for one who was not dead, but well and happy and married to another!
An agony of shame rushed over the wronged, insulted, humiliated beauty. She longed to fly from the world. She asked her father to leave Gra.s.smere and go to some other farm a hundred miles away. She asked him suddenly, nervously, and so impetuously that the old man looked up in dismay.
"What! leave the farm where your mother lived with me, and where you were born. I should feel strange, girl; but"--and he gave a strange sigh--"mayhap I shall have to leave it whether I will or no."
Susan misunderstood him and colored with self-reproach. She said hastily: "No! no! Father, you shan"t leave it for me. Forgive me, I am a wayward girl!"
And the strung nerves gave way, and tears gushed over the hot cheeks, as she clung to her father, and tried to turn the current of her despised love and bestow it all on that selfish old noodle. A great treasure went a-begging in Gra.s.smere farmhouse.
Mr. Meadows called, but much to his chagrin Susan was never visible.
"Would he excuse her? she was indisposed."